McLaren will give another chance to its new front wing recently introduced in Formula 1. After abandoning the use of the part during the weekend in Canada, the team confirmed that the update will return to the car at the Monaco GP, for a new round of evaluations.
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This decision was confirmed by the team principal, Andrea Stella, who explained that the component still needs to be better understood before being definitively incorporated into the project. With three free practice sessions available in Monte Carlo, being a weekend without the Sprint format, the team believes it will have a more suitable opportunity to collect information.
The new front wing debuted in Canada. Lando Norris started track work with the update, while Oscar Piastri began using the component later during the activity. However, after the evaluations carried out in the practice sessions, McLaren chose to remove the part before the Sprint qualifying.
With the change, both drivers returned to the previously used specification, the same configuration that helped the team achieve a double podium in Miami. The decision was made because the new solution did not present the performance gain expected by the engineers.
Stella stated that the team already knew there were some doubts about the aerodynamic effects of the update: “We knew that this front wing had some element of deviation from an aerodynamic point of view. So we tested it. We want to repeat some tests and get more information,” he said.
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According to the director, even if the part could bring some advantage on the Canadian circuit, it would not represent a significant transformation in the car’s performance. Therefore, McLaren preferred to act cautiously before using it in a weekend with the Sprint format.
“Before adopting it in a Sprint event, we wanted to have more guarantees that we understood the full extent of the changes we were making to the car,” said Stella. The team principal added that not all updates brought to the track have the immediate goal of competing, as some serve to validate data and compare results with the development tools used by the team.
Even with the setback in Canada, McLaren remains confident in the potential of the novelty. Stella confirmed that the work will continue at the next event of the season and ended any doubts about the future of the part: “We will definitely see this wing again in Monaco,” concluded the head of the British team.
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